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Monday, March 11, 2013

Son Yoo

I always did wonder why on earth they bothered to show Son Yoo holding
the pocket watch if they weren't going to discuss it. I guess it was
another one of those things that they originally intended to expand upon
but had no time - in this case, that it's possible Eun Soo was not the
only time traveller, but Son Yoo was also one as well. Whether he was a
time traveller or not, Son Yoo is an eternal puzzle to me. From the
beginning he had spoken of his divided loyalties between Goryeo and Yuan
and genuinely seemed to hope that Gongmin would avoid Goryeo bloodshed
and a subsequent takeover by ceding to Yuan's demands. His hesitation
over deciding between Gongmin and Deok Heung further suggested that he
still felt ties to Goryeo... and yet in Episode 22 he stated to Ki Chul
that he had long since lost faith in Goryeo as a nation and now acted on
behalf of Yuan's best interests. He also spoke threateningly of
"taming" Gongmin by removing Choi Young, thereby ridding Yuan of its
Goryeo threat.Was he simply an extremely good actor in front of
Gongmin and successfully masked his motives, or was he truly a man torn
between a faint remnant of loyalty to Goryeo even as he carried out his
duty for Yuan? If it is the latter, then the question that begs an
answer is why he eventually chose Deok Heung over Gongmin. In every way,
Deok Heung's answers confirmed Son Yoo's belief that there was no
longer hope for a free Goryeo while such greedy and self-serving men
remained in power, and despite stating that he is pleased with the
answers, Son Yoo appeared to betray subtle disappointment that his fears
have been thus proven. So what made him decide against Gongmin, who was
Goryeo's best hope of freedom? Wasn't Gongmin proof that there are
those in power who have Goryeo's best interests at heart?

The
most logical answer that I can come up with is that Son Yoo is a man so
jaded after many years in the service of Yuan that he does not believe
in fighting battles that have little chance of being won. That is
implied by his suggestion to Eun Soo that the best path of action is to
maintain the peace by observing from the sidelines rather than
interfering. Presumably as a result of his experiences, he prefers to
remain in stasis out of fear of inviting negative consequences with his
actions. Therefore, when Gongmin refuses to take the "safer" option of
submitting to Yuan, Son Yoo chooses Deok Heung even if it meant the end
of Goryeo, because it was the option that he believed would invite the
least risk.

Sia to HanjaeI am beginning to think that the
Yuan Envoy is not from the future. If he is, he should be pushing for
the real history to happen and not preventing it. Even though he
possessed the pocket watch, does not mean he is from the future. There
is also a scenario that he might be raised by someone who was from the
future and told him all about it. It seems more plausible and that he is
unsure of his actions hence he thread really carefully when it comes to
dealing with GM and CY. He's not a bad guy, he probably just wants to
make sure he ensures the future will happen as he was told of it?

Hanjae to SiaYes, it could be his grandfather or some other similar figure who was a
time traveller, particularly since they were the ones who wrote down Eun
Soo's message in hangul. Alternatively, since the time travel aspect in
Faith is so unpredictable, the other possibility is that Son Yoo had
already lived through another version of history that was not changed
by the arrival of Eun Soo - or at least not changed to the point where
she saved Yi Seong Gye and inadvertently set events on the path to the
end of the Goryeo dynasty. That would fit in with his not-so-subtle
warnings to Eun Soo about whether she had already saved someone that she
should not have, and his subsequent warning to Choi Young not to keep
Eun Soo by his side.